Breaking Radio Blog Silence

I know that many current and potential ERMes users have been wondering what in the world is happening with ERMes and when the next release of ERMes would come. I also know that the lack of concrete information has likely been perplexing and discouraging. Please take heart and know that as an open source electronic resource management system, ERMes is still evolving just as the user community keeps growing!

Here is an overdue update:

We’re working with a development partner that would help facilitate multi-user access. We saw a demo of his work last May and believe that it has the potential to be a non-MS Access, optional ERMes add-on that would fill the need of read-only access to ERMes data. This work will continue through the fall.

Though we have four top priorities for the next release, the one that I am asked most about is serials management at the title level. However, as Bill and I begin to ponder the implications and discuss options, we realized that, because managing e-journals was not part of my e-resource management work, we would be delving into unknown territory. Thus, we became concerned that the options we were considering were inappropriate, and the last thing we want to do with ERMes is create a tool based on guesses that – like many other ERMS – doesn’t meet users’ needs. So, in the coming weeks, I will be posting a short survey, and seek feedback from ERMes users that *do* have e-journal management expertise to determine exactly what serial management at the title level should be in ERMes.

In August, I began a new position at the University of Connecticut’s Homer Babbige Library and Jen Holman took over my e-resource responsibilities at UW-L. Because of the transition, and the above challenges, William and I decided that, it would be best to pause development until we were more comfortable and certain that the new developments met our expectations and would be what users want. Though such changes mean development delay, I am thrilled that these changes mean that I will be managing e-resources in a new environment where I can explore whether ERMes might or might not work at a much larger institution. Additionally, Jen’s experience with access and serials management have already lead to some beautiful tweaks and new reports in ERMes!

Soon, I will be posting a link seeking feedback about serials management and new how-too information, but in the meantime, apologies for the blog silence!